Torn between adapting the Church to changing times and defending his faith, Pope Benedict realized he wasn't the man to lead today's Vatican.

On Monday, Benedict XVI announced he would resign on February 28, becoming the first pontiff to step down in nearly 600 years. The decision sets the stage for a conclave to elect a new pope before the end of March.

Was Pope Benedict’s startling resignation an act of courage or the decision of a frail old man yielding to fear? One of the Ten Commandments says don’t lie, but there is no commandment that forces us to tell the truth. Truth from the Vatican is like a jigsaw puzzle from Toys R Us - it’s up to us to put the pieces together. Often, in the case of the Vatican, the result of this exercise gives us a picture that is a combination of the truth and the truth we would like to see.

After trying to put the puzzle together for a few days, I believe that Pope Benedict has decided to be a modern Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of the plight of the Catholic Church. There is no doubt that his frailty has contributed greatly to his decision, but his fine intellect told him that the survival of the Church hinges on deep, radical changes, and he was probably not prepared to undertake them.

The Vatican has been forced to accept all the changes that our society has undergone despite the official opposition from Rome. The Vatican has lost the fight against divorce, birth control, abortion and same-sex marriage, to name a few. Many Catholics have realized that we can’t fight poverty and disease in Third World Countries without birth control, and abstinence is not the answer. The Vatican has become a shepherd that follows rather than leads its flock.

The only places where the Vatican can still exercise control is in dealing with its own organization, its own strong structures – for instance, it can still defend the rule of celibacy for priests and oppose priesthood for women.

But even this fortress is under attack from within. Many scandals have tarnished its strength. Internal leaks and questionable financial operations have embarrassed the institution and weakened the structure. And, most of all, pedophilia is forcing the Vatican into deep soul-searching and radical changes.

These issues are not like abortion, same-sex marriage, divorce and birth control. Those decisions were made by others while the Vatican could save face by formally opposing them. The world was changing, the Church was not, but its principles were safe.

Ending priestly celibacy and allowing priesthood for women, on the other hand, are among the changes that the Church must make for itself. To understand how difficult the Church finds accepting change, one should remember that it took five centuries for it to admit that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around.

While divorce, abortion and same-sex marriages have divided Catholics, the Church’s hierarchy remained strong and united against them. Issues such as priestly celibacy and female priesthood will bring divisions and infighting right into the Vatican. Pope Benedict is not known to be a strong reformer, but he is very intelligent with an inquisitive mind.

The Church has no choice but to deal with these changes; but can an old, physically weak man go against his own principles and his own faith (and many other old men like him) because that’s the right thing to do?

Probably Pope Benedict realized that in order to do the right thing, he had to go against his faith, and against the powerful image of his predecessor, John Paul II, who travelled the world, despite illness and pain, defending the principles that Benedict now had to reconsider. This Pope’s faith didn’t allow him to do that, but his intelligence didn’t allow him to ignore a problem that is weakening the Catholic Church.

He found a compromise by looking to history, to the example of Pietro Angelerio, who was elected Pope in 1294, assuming the name Celestino V, and resigned five months later. Celestino’s action wasn’t received very well by the “media” of the time. In his Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri depicted Celestino in hell and called him a coward, the person "che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto” (“Who to base fear yielding, abjur’d his high estate”). The good-natured Celestino was arrested and died in jail. History, however, has a different opinion of him. Now Celestino V is considered a saint.

Because human nature doesn’t allow us to wait for history to express its final judgment, we must work with what we have to formulate an opinion. Mine is that Pope Benedict, confronted with the dilemma of facing the future or dealing with history, has preferred the latter. Whatever decision he was going to make required courage. And his decision deserves respect.

Angelo Persichilli is a freelance journalist.

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